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Amazon Prime Video to Feature Ads From January 29, With $2.99 Fee to Avoid Them

There is only one answer is piracy.

If these companies want to stop piracy, they're doing it exactly the wrong way.

You used to be able to buy BluRay/DVDs of your movies / series,
Then you were able to watch them online on paid streaming services.
Now you are forced to also watch ads if you pay.

One constant, if you pirate: you get a media file, which you can play on whichever device you want. Without DRM.
Without ADS. Forever.

At every media company: LET us buy movies / TV shows directly with a DRM free download. You can even use P2P to transfer the files. So it would limit your cost, and it would give us exactly what we want. And it would take the need for piracy away. Like Gabe Newell (Valve) once said: Piracy is a service problem.
 
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The increase seems reasonable for us since we watch shows in Prime. So, we will pay it. Keep calm, not make a small issue to be bigger and be happy.😊 Life is too short to be unhappy.
 
SanderEvers said:
It's a crime to FORCE PAYING customers to watch ads for the content THEY PAID FOR!!!
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Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything. They aren’t holding your eyeballs open while strapped to a chair Clockwork Orange-style. And you pay to access content, not the content itself. And, unless one has access to content in offline form, one relinquishes content presentation experience to the platform.
 
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Skyscraperfan said:
Sounds like a ransom to me: We will annoy you with ads, but you can pay a "tiny" fee to avoid that.
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Nice show you're watching... it would be a pity if it were interrupted...

But it is a question of time until all content on the Internet, even the user-generated, is CIALIS VIAGRA OXYCONTIN CHEAP CANADIAN PHARMACY interrupted by ads.
 
Churches always need a lot of money. Imagine one day in a mass: "This prayer is sponsored by the Big Rösti Chicken. Now available at McDonald's"
 
There is not a single streaming service that justifies an annual subscription, not even Apple TV which has a little inventory but an astounding quality. And the same goes for newspapers and magazines. This new culture of subscriptions is an abuse for lazy people that has no idea to operate the web. Do you really think that Amazon Prime needs money from ads to keep afloat his global monopoly? It's just greed.
 
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scorpio vega said:
Why does it sound like you guys want stuff for either free or nearly free lol.
LIke i get it, to an extent....these companies prices are getting outrageous and Amazon adding commercials to prime Or charging $3 to remove them when their content is pathetic is definitely not something I approve of.

But just like us, these companies also want to make money. I don't see it as greedy lol.
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Well $148 a year ($12+ a month) isn't exactly free (or nearly free). So adding another $3 makes it $187+ a year ($15+ a month.) Again, not exactly free and getting borderline not worth it. I think that is more the message here.
 
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I watch various older shows on Amazon Prime (still love watching "House MD") some movies, so now with miserable ads -- unless I pay $3 more a month to this trillion dollar company.

Pure total greed...nothing more! Looks like I'll load up my FireTV stick again with other various apps that feature FAR more shows, movies and no moronic commercials.
 
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azentropy said:
I haven't received the message yet and I haven't yet seen if this applies (yet) to people who paid a year in advance. Would be really crappy if they add ads to those who already pre-paid. Mine just renewed in November.
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I haven't seen this email/message also, I renewed Prime in late October. But I still would not be shocked if commercials are still slapped on us.

No "grandfathering"...it's pay more by late Jan., or we get the ads.
 
MrGimper said:
AP has got worse and worse. Most of the decent content on there as soon as you click on it it asks you to sign up for some other 3rd party service.
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This burns me up. All the 3rd party subscriptions tied in with Prime

My aunt has FireTV...Prime Video. She will see a show on Prime Video home screen, "Watch First 2 episodes free..." (with sign up for 7 day trial for STARZ),.

She somehow thinks this show is free with Prime..watches it, without realizing it, she just signed up for trial period of Starz, which expires. Then sees a charge on her card a month after for Starz subscription. SMH! I have access to her Prime acct. and check to see if she keeps doing this.

Few months ago, she did this with AMC+ ugh.
 
darkpaw said:
More dodgy behaviour from this company. Charging extra to remove something they're going to add is 100% dodgy.
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This is not dodgy. They're essentially raising the price of the ad-free plan by $2.99/month and adding an ad-supported plan. Other streaming services have done similar. People have the choice of going with ad-free, ad-supported or nothing at all.
 
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M5RahuL said:
Prime membership prices substantially increased 17%

Prime promised deliveries ( 2 day ) is no longer completely valid, as most ( at least in DFW TX ) have increasingly been getting delayed resulting in a quality of service decline, while increasing the membership cost

Whats the current profit margin on Prime Video ? That, as consumer is irrelevant .. But, as for corporate greed, let's see..A market cap of over $1.6T, over a 12% revenue increase YoY, a net profit margin of over 200% and stock earnings over 234% is quite telling!
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I understand prices have gone up. My question was about profit margin, specifically Prime Video profit margin, which is completely relevant if you are going claim greed. Just because a price goes up or a product/service generates a lot of revenue doesn't mean it's unreasonably profitable or even profitable at all. Maybe Amazon was losing money on Prime Video and the price increase was necessary to try to generate profit. I'm not saying that's the case here but without knowing profit margin, a price increase or high revenue doesn't automatically mean greed.
 
SanderEvers said:
It's a crime to FORCE PAYING customers to watch ads for the content THEY PAID FOR!!!
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It’s hardly a crime. No one Is forcing customers to watch anything, ads or not. You still have a choice to go ad- free.

A pay/ad hybrid model had been the norm for "content delivery" for ages whether it be television, newspapers or magazines. The good thing about many premium streaming services today is that they offer a choice of going ad-free or ad-supported. You didn't have that option back in the day with premium channels like HBO which were much more expensive (inflation adjusted) with less content, no on demand, etc.
 
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I wish they would slap adds on all their non-shopping services and reduce the price of core prime (shipping). We’ve never used any of them and are only subscribed for the shopping convenience. But of course, they just slap adds on everything and don’t lower the price lol.
 
webkit said:
It’s hardly a crime. No one Is forcing customers to watch anything, ads or not. You still have a choice to go ad- free.

A pay/ad hybrid model had been the norm for "content delivery" for ages whether it be television, newspapers or magazines. The good thing about many premium streaming services today is that they offer a choice of going ad-free or ad-supported. You didn't have that option back in the day with premium channels like HBO which were much more expensive (inflation adjusted) with less content, no on demand, etc.
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You used to be able to buy a BluRay disc or DVD containing the movies or TV shows. They almost completely took that away. Those discs never had any ads.

You used to be able to pay for Ad-free content to be streamed for a reasonable price. Now it's going to cost twice that.

You should NEVER EVER accept ads on content you PAID for. It's the reason I stopped watching TV. It's the reason I started sailing the high seas. I stopped pirating because of decently priced streaming services, but because of fragmentation, price hikes and ads on these services I started to go back to the high seas. They often have streaming services of their own now, which are free and offer all the content you ever want.

Other example is the Sony & Discovery debacle. On which they now backpaddled. These companies should offer a very simple webshop where you can buy any of their content for download and/or streaming. Without any ads or drm. Then there would be 0 reason to pirate.

Luckily this isn't coming to the Netherlands (yet) so I'm not affected (yet). But once they do, I'll be saying 'goodbye' to Amazon prime. Especially with the price increase from €2,99 to €4,99 from next month.
 
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MBAir2010 said:
if they only the others here knew we have such a promising planet outside.
Which seems to me the populous seems to ignore or just forgot about,
as that scenery wont make a CEO richer, as a mundane streamed holiday show/movie.

I decided to cancel HBO and use that for buying reading novels which is so much better.

enjoy the green an sometime yellow or fading grass, my earthing friend!
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That too, I've been reading a ton more since ditching my streaming services. Ironically enough it's on an Amazon Kindle and I buy my books from Amazon, so they will gouge my money out of me one way or another.
 
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bobcomer said:
I wont pirate.
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The key grips and ancillary workers have already been paid. You aren't stealing from them. Our elites have thrown us overboard. Don't worry about it as much as you are. Your class interests do not align with tv/movie studios.
 
Apple_Robert said:
Very soon.

I wonder if Amazon Video subs are down and Amazon came up with this easy way to look for more money.

I am glad I have taken the time and money to build up my own Plex Server.
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It took a few grey hairs but once you figure this way out there is no going back. Congrats to you and the people you're sharing with. you using the "arrs?"
 
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spinedoc77 said:
That too, I've been reading a ton more since ditching my streaming services. Ironically enough it's on an Amazon Kindle and I buy my books from Amazon, so they will gouge my money out of me one way or another.
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sadly I would purchase books at a local store, order them once a month until march 23
the owners were always sour and complained of my last selections.
Ian McEwen, Charles Frazier, Michael Ondaatje, Neil Peart and Martin Amis (they never got the book)
were not mainstream enough for them and a "hassle" tho when I asked about that they just shrugged their shoulders and placed the order with some problem like a phone number or best time to call, which they never did.
then they developed a chip on their shoulder and started being being rude.
(perhaps Amazon is paying them to act like this all of the sudden, most pf the people here dislike them as well)

therefore I order a book per month from Barnes & Noble and pay for shipping
the price is the same as that store and my Fed-ex driver is nicer!

next month is "the worst team money can buy" about the NY mets 1992 season.
should be a great read since i lived in that era in NYC-Montréal.
 
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Who would pay $2.99 for a service with arguably the worst content out there? Amazon just out for a cash grab
 
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